


The Short Life of Shaun Hastings

by Maria_and_Aguilars_Codex_1492



Series: Short Tales of the Modern Brotherhood [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Mentions of Desmond Miles, Non-Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 09:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11101674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maria_and_Aguilars_Codex_1492/pseuds/Maria_and_Aguilars_Codex_1492
Summary: Shaun wonders if there could have been a happier ending for him, but the life of an assassin is no fairy tale.





	The Short Life of Shaun Hastings

When Shaun Hastings is only a boy he questions his father. They had gone to a large grassy field with stones sticking up from the ground. Daddy seems upset _-silly daddy-_ he just doesn't smile when he is here.

 _Why is mommy_ gone? He doesn't remember when it happened, but mommy just disappeared one day. She had spent the last weeks in their room, but she wasn't there anymore. Daddy doesn't say a thing. People come in though, family members that he has never met, whispering amongst themselves about death.

 _What is death?_ Daddy doesn't tell him. No one tells him not even the teachers. So, Shaun begins to read because  _books have knowledge_ is what mommy had always said. He'll find out and he'll save her! Then daddy can stop being upset and mommy can come home.

 _Why did it happen?_ Daddy doesn't say not when Shaun shows him the book. Death is weird and he doesn't feel as if the book explained it good enough. 'How is he supposed to find mommy? It doesn't say daddy!' But daddy just gave him an empty look before telling him to  _leave._

Later that night, daddy joins mommy, and Shaun doesn't understand why he can't join to.

He doesn't understand, _not until he is older,_ and even then he finds himself wondering... 

___Why didn't I go with him?_

* * *

When Desmond dies...Shaun doesn't know how to respond not  _really._ William is gone,  _his father fucking left without a damn care,_ but Rebecca is still here _and he tries to ignore the empty pill bottle by her bed._

Shaun feels his throat enclose, his eyes burn, and then he is crying.  _He is sobbing._ Because their family is gone _this team is fucking broken and dead deaddea-_

By the time morning comes he feels drained, but today is the day now isn't it? They have to get Desmond,  _his mangled corpse,_ and he'll be there awaiting for them.

He'll smile, act annoyed, complain that we left him. Shaun will remark back with something that is a bit rude, but blunt nonetheless. Rebecca will roll her eyes and tell them to knock it off. _They'll be a family again._

* * *

_He'll look up at them with the eyes of a corpse._

_"Look at what you've done."_

* * *

Desmond is gone _-his rotting body is gone-_ so they simply stare upon the stone floor below.

"I don't think that I can do this anymore." Rebecca says after a while and Shaun finally sees it. There is something gone from her. She seems  _hollow_ as if she has just tired _tired of the Assassins and the Templars, Abstergo and the Pieces of Eden, life._

"We have....for Desmond." 

Shaun can't bring himself to say it. That they must carry on with living for him, because it wasn't as if he had done the same for them.

* * *

They hunt down the Sword of Eden.

However, they are greated with an empty chamber. No one has stepped foot in here since the French Revolution  _or at least that was how it was supposed to be._

The Molay's, the de la Serres, the Dorian's. Their knowledge leads them to something that has already breen taken. There is information though, documents and artifacts and weapons, things that any historian would have killed for. But Shaun has no interest in any of it. Not anymore, because all that he can focus on is that the Sword of Eden is  _gone._

_Just like Desmond_

So they leave with empty hands

_Just like Desmond_

And Shaun tries to ignore the fact that Rebecca has that same pill bottle sitting beside her bed

_Just like with Desmond_

Their broken begond belief and Shaun finds himself missing those first few months together.

* * *

The Shroud of Eden is harder to find.

Harder to  _acquire._ It had come to their knowledge that assassins were the last ones to have it. Which presented itself to be a problem at first until they went out to a graveyards tomb in Crawley.

They have the memories of Jacob and Evie Frye. That's supposed to  _help._

_Just like Altaïr and Ezio and Haytham and Connor._

The Fryes will show them the way and they  _do of course they do._ It is beneath Buckingham Palace and  _Abstergo is there_. 

Then Rebecca is hurt- _Rebecca is like Desmond now-_ and the Shroud of Eden is gone.

_If only Desmond had lived._

* * *

She lays on a hospital bed.

Her skin is almost as pale as the pristine sheets that she is on, but the heart monitor says that she is still  _alive._

* * *

Shaun goes through Abstergo's files in search of the Shroud.

He finds Callie.

She is the descendant of Altaïr, of Ezio, of Haytham and Connor.

She is the daughter of Desmond _and all he can see is her dead corpse._

_Just like Desmond._

* * *

Rebecca is told that she will never walk again.

She ask him for her pills _, the pills will take it all away,_ and Shaun complies...

_Why oh god why did he comply?_

_It's only him now, all alone, no Desmond, no Lucy, no William, no Rebecca._

* * *

Later that night Shaun sits in a shabby motel room with a gun in his hand.

He doesn't know what he is going to do _but you do don't you Shaun?_

_You know what is going to happen._

_Just like Desmond._

_Just like Rebecca._

* * *

Shaun stands upon a buildings roof, the tallest that he could find. It seemed rather symbolic for it to all end like this. The poor little boy who had wanted to join mommy finally will through a skill that only an assassin has.

There is nothing to catch him  _no bloody carts of hay._ Just the smooth pavement of London below.

His mouth will be stopped up with mud. He'll lie in rags and make no sound. His blood will go  _underground_ and that is where he will be left.

So he takes his leap of faith.

_He'll see them again._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Another short and not very sweet one-shot. This is an alternate take to the first in this series. Which I hope didn't make some of the things in here confusing. I hope you enjoyed guys!


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